From Auto Emissions to iPods, Professor’s Work Seeks to Improve Public Health

It isn’t by happenstance that Dr. Jennifer Peel is an epidemiologist specializing in public health. Her mother was a participant in the Nurses’ Health Study and received a regular newsletter from Harvard with updates on the study which Dr. Peel found interesting to read when she was growing up. The public health seed was planted, even though it took a bit of watering to sprout, and today Dr. Peel is involved in a similar large scale study that examines the health effects of air pollution.

“I always enjoyed math and science in high school, but really wasn’t sure what I wanted to study,” said Dr. Peel, who is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences. “At Pennsylvania State University I did my undergraduate degree in molecular and cell biology, and worked in a research lab. Following my degree, I worked in North Carolina at a pharmaceutical company doing cancer research and soon found I couldn’t see myself doing lab work for the rest of my career. I decided to look more into the public health field.”

Dr. Peel was accepted into the School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she received her Master’s of Public Health and PhD in Epidemiology. She continued as a postdoctoral researcher at Emory examining adverse cardiac and respiratory health effects of air pollution. Her research team has collected data from 40 hospitals with more than 10 million visits recorded. The study, with data collected back to 1993, continues today and examines the connection between air pollution conditions and the incidence of emergency department visits for health conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pneumonia and upper respiratory infections. The Atlanta study also looks at arrhythmic events in patients equipped with implanted defibrillators, and apnea and bradycardia (an abnormally slow heart rate) in high-risk infants on home cardiorespiratory monitors.

“I really kind of fell into the air pollution study,” reflected Dr. Peel. “They needed a doctoral student and asked me to join. I was personally interested in environmental issues, so it seemed like a good fit. I could have gone in any direction, but I had a great mentor and advisor and got into a field where I feel I can really make a difference.”

Dr. Peel joined CSU in 2004 and, while she continues her work on the air pollution studies in Atlanta, has expanded her research work and taken on teaching duties at CSU. She instructs an undergraduate epidemiology class and coordinates a graduate research seminar class, both of which allow her to enjoy students and share her infectious enthusiasm for epidemiology.

“With epidemiology, we see the impact every day of what we do – how we live and the choices we make not only affects the quality of lives for ourselves, but for others as well,” said Dr. Peel. “Epidemiology can never prove anything; we can only make observations and come up with causal arguments. We don’t show exact cause and effect because we work with humans in a complex world and not in a laboratory. But we can show connections and relationships which can lead to regulations that promote a safer environment and a healthier population.”

Although Dr. Peel’s research continues to focus on environmental epidemiology, she and colleagues have worked on exciting proposals for projects they hope will soon be funded. One proposed project will look at hearing loss in college students from the use of iPods, specifically when used with ear-bud style head sets (Dr. William Brazile, an Assistant Professor in ERHS, is the principal investigator). Another proposed study will look at the health effects of coarse particulate matter in urban and rural areas in Colorado (Dr. Mike Hannigan of the University of Colorado at Boulder, is principal investigator on the project).

As far as the Nurses’ Health Study that originally piqued Dr. Peel’s interest in epidemiology and public health, it continues today with more than 116,000 women enrolled.